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Missions to Mars Past Present and FutureBy Disabled World - Jan 23, 2009 11:18:16 AM Dozens of spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been sent to Mars by the Soviet Union, the United States, Europe, and Japan to study the planet's surface, climate, and geology. Roughly two-thirds of all spacecraft destined for Mars have failed in one manner or another before completing or even beginning their missions.
Dozens of spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been sent to Mars by the Soviet Union, the United States, Europe, and Japan to study the planet's surface, climate, and geology. Roughly two-thirds of all spacecraft destined for Mars have failed in one manner or another before completing or even beginning their missions. Read some interesting Planet Mars Facts and Information
Past missions to Mars The first successful fly-by mission to Mars was NASA's Mariner 4, launched in 1964. The first successful objects to land on the surface were two Soviet probes, Mars 2 and Mars 3 from the Mars probe program, launched in 1971, but both lost contact within seconds of landing. Then came the 1975 NASA launches of the Viking program, which consisted of two orbiters, each having a lander; both landers successfully touched down in 1976 and remained operational for 6 and 3 years, for Viking 1 and Viking 2 respectively. The Viking landers relayed the first color pictures of Mars and also mapped the surface of Mars so well that the images are still sometimes used to this day. The Soviet probes Phobos 1 and 2 were sent to Mars in 1988 to study Mars and its two moons, unfortunately Phobos 1 lost contact on the way to Mars, and Phobos 2, while successfully photographing Mars and Phobos, failed just before it was set to release two landers on Phobos's surface. Following the 1992 Failure of the Mars Observer orbiter, NASA launched the Mars Global Surveyor in 1996. This mission was a complete Success, having finished its primary mapping mission in early 2001. Contact was lost with the probe in November 2006 during its third extended program, spending exactly 10 operational years in space. Only a month after the launch of the Surveyor, NASA launched the Mars Pathfinder, carrying a robotic exploration vehicle Sojourner, which landed in the Ares Vallis on Mars. This mission was another big Success, and received much publicity, partially due to the many spectacular images that were sent back to Earth. Time Line of Launches to Mars: 1960 Korabl 4 USSR (flyby) Failure Didn't reach Earth orbit.
Current and ongoing Mars missions In 2001 NASA launched the successful Mars Odyssey orbiter. Odyssey's Gamma Ray Spectrometer detected significant amounts of hydrogen in the upper meter or so of Mars' regolith. This hydrogen is thought to be contained in large deposits of water ice. In 2003, the ESA launched the Mars Express craft, consisting of the Mars Express Orbiter and the lander Beagle 2. Beagle 2 failed during descent and was declared lost in early February 2004. In early 2004 the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer team announced it had detected methane in the Martian atmosphere. ESA announced in June 2006 the discovery of aurorae on Mars. Also in 2003, NASA launched the twin Mars Exploration Rovers named Spirit (MER-A) and Opportunity (MER-B). Both missions landed successfully in January 2004 and have met or exceeded all their targets. Among the most significant scientific returns has been conclusive evidence that liquid water existed at some time in the past at both landing sites. Martian dust devils and windstorms have occasionally cleaned both rovers' solar panels, and thus increased their lifespan. On August 12, 2005 the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter probe was launched toward the planet, arriving in orbit on March 10, 2006 to conduct a two-year science survey. The orbiter will map the Martian terrain and weather to find suitable landing sites for upcoming lander missions. It also contains an improved telecommunications link to Earth, with more bandwidth than all previous missions combined. NASA Phoenix Lander launched August 4, 2007 and arrived on the north polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008. The lander has a robotic arm with a 2.5 m reach and capable of digging a meter into the Martian soil. The lander will be in an area with an 80% chance of ice being less than 30 cm below the surface, and has a microscopic camera capable of resolving to one-thousandth the width of a human hair.
Future missions to Mars Phoenix will be followed by the Mars Science Laboratory in 2009, a bigger, faster, and smarter version of the Mars Exploration Rovers. Experiments include a laser chemical sample that can deduce the make-up of rocks at a distance of 13 m. The joint Russian and Chinese Phobos-Grunt sample-return mission, to return samples of Mars' moon Phobos, is scheduled for a 2009 launch. In 2012 the ESA plans to launch its first Rover to Mars, the ExoMars rover will be capable of drilling 2 m into the soil in search of organic molecules. Manned Mars exploration by the United States has been explicitly identified as a long-term goal in the Vision for Space Exploration announced in 2004 by US President George W. Bush. NASA and Lockheed Martin have begun work on the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), which is currently scheduled to send a human expedition to Earth's moon by 2020 as a stepping stone to an expedition to Mars thereafter. The European Space Agency hopes to land humans on Mars between 2030 and 2035. This will be preceded by successively larger probes, starting with the launch of the ExoMars probe and a Mars Sample Return Mission.
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